funny (if not necessarily "passive-aggressive") notes from pissed-off people

Those heirloom tomatoes had sentimental value!

Frustrated by fridge thieves who continually ignore your polite (or not-so-polite) requests to keep their paws to themselves? Don’t get mad — get creative! You could end up with something so crazy it might actually work…that is, if it doesn’t totally backfire.

You could go for the classic bluff, with the hopes that you’ll inspire just enough self-doubt to encourage the thief to go for the next lunch bag over.

Or you could hold out hope that the thief in question is either very lazy, very stupid…

…or that he or she appreciates your twisted sense of humor enough to take mercy on your pathetic self.

Or you could just bring this for lunch. (Somehow, I think this would have been safe, even without the note.)

Thanks to Theresa in Birmingham, Alabama; Stacey in Manchester, New Hampshire; Alissa in Memphis, Tennessee; and Marianne in Dublin, Ireland for submitting!

The cheese is said to be named after its American creator Edward W. Coon of Philadelphia, who patented a method, subsequently known as the Cooning process, for fast maturation of cheese via high temperature and humidity.[2][3][4][1] Former manufacturer Kraft, and later Dairy Farmers and National Foods, have vigorously defended the trademark.

@ Canthz_B: Interestingly enough, Uncle Ben was a real person. He was a rice farmer in Texas (known as Uncle Ben) whose rice was renown for its quality. His name became a byword for quality rice in the area. Unfortunately, I don’t think he received any compensation for the use of his name. The “face” of Uncle Ben was Chicago’s Tavern Club’s hat check man, Frank Brown. He was paid $500 to sit for the portrait of the mascot (this was 1944). Again, I think that was all the compensation that was earned.

Um, I never said he wasn’t a real person…he would have been known as “Uncle” Ben because it was deemed inappropriate to call a Black man “Mister”.
The closest term which could be used to recognize a man of color who happened to have attained a certain age was “Uncle”.

Even if the original rice farmer was White, “Uncle” would have been used for the portrait of the Black man on the product.

But, of course, he was indeed not White…According to the official Uncle Ben’s, Inc. website (www.unclebens.com), he was “an African American rice farmer known to rice millers in and around Houston for consistently producing the highest quality rice.”

I’m honestly not picking a fight, I just think it’s interesting and important to study the origins of advertising, especially in regards to race in advertising (including Uncle Ben, “African villagers,” “exotic Orientals,” etc.). I only mentioned the Uncle Ben story because it was something I learned not too long ago and was at least peripherally relevant to the discussion.

(Sorry, I’m a media studies geek. I forget that sometimes things I say can be taken as confrontational.)

No fight perceived. Just thought you’d like to know why the name “Uncle” Ben is racist and offensive. Notice it’s not “Mr. Whoever’s” rice, right? Do we even know his surname? Who needed it, when they’d never refer to a man of his social standing by it anyway?
In the American South, whites once commonly referred to elderly black men as “uncle,” even though they were not blood relatives (cf. Uncle Remus and Uncle Tom).

I suppose they didn’t teach that part in your media studies course, so I just figured…the more you know!

I think Mister Jones would be a terrible name for a brand of food. Racist undertones aside, I suspect that people would rather eat something that sounds familial, than something from a stranger who won’t even give his first name.

Tell that to Mrs. Smith’s pies or Mrs. Paul’s fish sticks. Hell, even a peanut in a top hat gets called “mister”!

Fact is, “uncle” was not a term of respect when applied to a mature black man, it just reflected the reality that you can’t very well call a 60 year-old man “boy” (especially when he’s your elder)…and this particular type of “uncle” probably served up more saliva than his “family” would like to think about.

I don’t make the history, I just report it.
The use of the “good manservant” as an ambassador for their product is based on a very racist time and concept in our country. A time when “our good Niggras were happy to serve us the very best”.
A time when a black male went from “boy” to “uncle”, but was never referred to as a “man” or “mister” in polite white company.
Kat might call that “the origins of the advertising”, as that is the actual advertising strategy employed. The hook into the consciousness of the consumer if you will.

So the real Uncle Ben was a respected rice farmer. Tell me why the mascot on the product is dressed as a butler or waiter, not a farmer in overalls or something?
You see, this was no racist “undertone”, it was and still is blatantly racist, and overtly marketed as such.
A very successful marketing strategy, I must admit, but still racist.

I’m not looking for a fight here either, Maas…just pointing out some historical realities.
Why it’s so hard for some of us to acknowledge the ugly truths in our society is beyond me.
And grasping at straws as you did above is beneath you.

FWIW, there’s a local hot sauce company that goes by “Uncle Brutha”. Yeah, you read it right. Both Uncle and lost the “er”. But since this is a modern company and the (black) guy behind the sauce decided the name, he’s not politically incorrect as much as ironic. And he makes a damn fine sauce. So there’s that.

@kat 1.14: Every time I high-five someone I imagine us freeze-framed at the moment of impact, with a rainbow displaying the word “Shazam!” appearing over our heads. I also usually say it under my breath. This might be why I don’t get many high-fives.

I’m originally from New Zealand but now live in Aust. Everytime I buy it from the supermarket not only do I feel guilty…but I hide it in my shopping bag so you can’t see it through the plastic bag…

If fact I was walking down the street the other day and saw someone else’s Coon branded cheese through their shopping bag and I was embarrassed for them…after all of these years I can’t get used to it….

(even as I write this postIi feel the need to write Coon “branded” cheese….)

You know what’s awful (or awesome, depending on how you look at it)? I’m a black American and I didn’t know that ‘coon’ was a racial epithet for ‘my people’ until just a few years ago (I’m 22). Hooray for progress (or ignorance)?

~/semaht\~ , if you were part cat you’d just eat the hair and save the gagging for when your person has left you alone AGAIN when all you wanted was to be adored all evening and you’ve noticed their favorite pair of shoes has been left outside of the closet. That’s when you get the gag thing going!

Our house is decorated in a cat hair theme. At least that’s what I tell myself when I have to use the lint roller on the couch.

Does “Coon” have the same racist overtones in Australia that it does in the US? Remember, some slang does not translate too smoothly, after all, in the US “fanny” is a perfectly harmless slang word for “posterior.”

I would love to add some naughty foreign (yet covert) vocabulary to my repertoire. So, Noelegy, how about a definition and sentence using “fanny” in the Australian vernacular? Does anyone else want to play?

And kids, let’s keep the racial slang out of the discussion. I much prefer covertly offending people using scatological language and references to body parts.

The girl’s magnificent fanny glistened in the comforting sun. The day seemed to slow down when we had our butt naked arses out, and the afternoon remains in my mind an eternity. An eternity of butt naked arse fanny in the sun.

At once, my hands lurched forward to awkwardly grasp the titties and my hips and pecker made a humping move that gained only air — not the sweet fuckfanny that I targeted innately.

After a while, I flipped her over on her arse so that her fanny kissed the clouds. I thrust my fannyfucker in at last. It did not gain purchase immediately, but with some fucking around it was finally plunged deep within the broad’s fanblaster, and I came instantly.

@ISpy:
I doubt many Americans know that ‘root’ is used as a funny/rude word in Australia. Let’s just say that rooting the local football team has a very different meaning from (U.S.) rooting FOR them. So have some fun asking people where their roots are, or if they can’t find something, suggest they root around under the bed. Maybe you could start saying ‘just root yourself here for a moment’ as a quirky alternative to “please wait here”. Just be sure you don’t say that to any Aussies!

Didn’t mean to get “preachy”…just meant to enlighten (probably got a bit carried away while at it too, LOL). Holocausts come in all shapes, sizes, degrees and colors. Just thought we should recognize that.

Apologies to anyone I offended, but I take the history of my people seriously, because those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

When I was in college, we had a shared fridge in the hall. Things regularly disappeared from there. My parents gave me several steaks to take back with me to school, but I got them to hide them in the commercial-size BRUSSELS SPROUTS boxes they had available. Steaks never walked off in anyone else’s tummy! Another hint: cheesecake tinted off-green can also be efficacious at deterring wandering fridge pilferers.

Food thieves deserve everything they get. I take the time to think ahead and bring my lunch and they feel it’s perfectly ok to help themselves to my stuff. Well, let’s just say that I have made a few Marmite and cat food sandwiches in my day that have mysteriously disappeared from the fridge. I’m not sure if they’re tasty but my lunch bag usually stays unmolested after that.

Marmite and cat food sandwiches!!! LOVE it! I wish I had thought of that when I was living with my very own Michelle. I just wound up buying a gigantic box with a lock on it and putting all of my food inside… It took an annoyingly long time to open when I wanted to eat something, but it did the trick!

Okay, I’ve done something like this once – but it was real. I was in a show, and the cast was used to me brining some kind of snack for the dressing room. But this production I had tonsillitis – so I wrote on my carton of juice, “I have tonsillitis and drink from the carton. Help Yourself.”

I figured it out. I bring my lunch in an insulated bag, which is locked in my desk. I also bring a decoy lunch, stored in the communal fridge.

The decoy lunch often features rancid meat or items which have spent time in the cat box. Let’s give the co-workers some crippling diarrhea or explosive vomiting, and then let’s see how many random lunches they steal.

Yes, but you still have intention, and it would be argued that your intention was to make people sick. It’s the same reason you can’t rig your car to blow up if a thief tries to steal it. Yeah, the thief was in the wrong but you can’t booby-trap your car.

Best bet is to make the most disgusting thing you can think of, like chocolate pudding and olives, or canned salmon and watermelon jello, or blue cheese cookies.

Splint, I have made blue cheese muffins, with extra stinky blue cheese. They were for a “mandatory” potluck we had once. I guess great minds think alike.

In the future I will concentrate on merely disgusting rather than harmful. But, as other posters have said — who is going to admit that they got sick from a stolen lunch, and how will they prove whose lunch made them sick?

The people I work with don’t have a habit of leaving leftovers. They just chow through everything like human versions of The Langoliers. They could get sick from something at work or, judging by the condition they leave the communal kitchen in, something from their disgusting homes.

I don’t think any of these notes would have kept my lunch safe at my last job. The only thing that ever worked was writing “Contains Bacon” on it. At least that worked until someone worked really late and decided to pick apart the salad. And then someone actually *read* the shakey bac’n (the fak’n bac’n that comes from a shaker) label and determined it had no bacon in it. Then I went back to losing my food to the doctors in the office. No wonder I gained weight when I started working at my next job. No one was stealing my lunch every day.

Were all your doctors (who presumably, could afford lunch) Jewish, Hindu, or Muslim? ‘Cause a notice of bacon will probably have most people very much interested in your lunch! Mmmmm….. Bacon…… sweet, sweet, bacon…..

The “Bob’s Urine” has got to be a 3rd shifter, because that has got to be Arizona Stress Rx Tea, and he’s got to be protecting it from the 1st shifters as they infiltrate the lunchroom fridge every morning with their coolers and large pots of Vietnamese food.